落脚燕郊，中国青年艺术家的理想与现实

YANJIAO, China — Artists in need of cheap, affordable studio space are often drawn to out-of-the-way or hardscrabble neighborhoods. The visual artists who flocked to SoHo in Manhattan decades ago helped resurrect what had been a deteriorating factory and warehouse district.

In China, a small and decidedly nondescript city called Yanjiao, about an hour’s drive from Beijing, has been experiencing a similar influx of artists, though it is highly unlikely that they will initiate the kind of renaissance that has tourists flocking to Williamsburg and SoHo.

Yanjiao, with a population of about 300,000, was once known mostly as a “sleeper city,” whose residents commuted to jobs in Beijing. During the day, its wide, dusty streets are nearly empty, flanked by apartment buildings waiting for tenants to return from work.

燕郊大约有30万人，曾以“睡城”闻名，那里的居民通勤去北京上班。白天，尘土飞扬的宽阔街道上几乎空无一人，两侧的公寓楼等着住户们下班回家。

The idealistic but impoverished artists here, many of them young graduates from Beijing’s elite art schools, work and live in these apartment blocks.

贫穷的理想主义艺术家——很多是北京顶尖艺术学校的年轻毕业生——在这些住宅区工作和生活。

Driven by high rents and the constant threat of demolition in Beijing, many artists who might previously have hunkered down in the city, China’s unofficial cultural capital, are flocking to Yanjiao as a low-cost spot from which to chase their dreams.

“The only reason for artists living in Yanjiao is that it’s cheap,” one of them, Zhang Yongji, 27, said with a laugh.

“只是因为便宜，我们才住在燕郊，”27岁的张永基笑着说。

Like many young artists, Mr. Zhang dreamed of making it big in Beijing. But after graduating from the prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts there in 2012, he looked into renting a studio in the city and found he could not afford one. A friend of his was living in Yanjiao, and after visiting, he decided to move here.

Eventually, he settled into an apartment complex called the South Side of Hawaii, one of the city’s many sprawling, colorfully named residential complexes designed in a faux European style. (Others include the North Side of Hawaii, Hawaii Valley and Sweet Seoul City.) In 2013, he and a group of friends founded On Space, an apartment turned experimental art gallery.

In the last decade, urbanization and gentrification have accelerated in Beijing. “These forces are pushing artists to think of alternative models for running art spaces, including, yes, spaces in Yanjiao,” said Kira Simon-Kennedy, a co-founder and the director of China Residencies, a nonprofit arts organization.

Many of China’s most famous contemporary artists emerged from so-called artist villages on the urban fringes of Beijing, where rent was low and distractions from making art were few.

中国很多最著名的当代艺术家都是从北京郊区所谓的艺术家村走出来的，那里租金便宜，而且几乎没有分散艺术创作注意力的东西。

One of the best known of these enclaves is Caochangdi Village. However, as Beijing’s city limits have expanded, many smaller artist villages have been torn down to make way for new development.

其中最出名的一个地方叫草场地。但是，随着北京的城区范围不断扩大，很多小型艺术家村被拆除，让位于新的地产开发项目。

“Art is always pushed to the edge,” said He Miao, a curator of contemporary art in Beijing. “In China, contemporary art cannot be made in cities. Where the urban meets the rural, that’s where art happens.”

“艺术总被推到边边角角的地方，”北京的当代艺术策展人禾苗说，“中国的当代艺术不可能诞生于城市，而是诞生于城乡结合部。”

Yanjiao initially attracted attention from the artistic community in 2006, when the Central Academy of Fine Arts established a satellite campus not far from the South Side of Hawaii. Art supply, printing and framing shops quickly popped up to serve the students, teachers and artists who would be living and working nearby.

The first artists found it lonely. “When I first got here, my building was completely empty, and there were no lights at night,” said Pange Yang, 26, who arrived in 2012. “I was the only person in the building.”

“I was preparing to really do the poor, starving artist thing in Songzhuang,” a well-established artist village about a half-hour away, said Li Tianqi, 24, another founder of On Space. “But why rent a tiny shack in Songzhuang when you can have a nice studio in Yanjiao?”

No one knows how many young artists now call Yanjiao home, though the On Space founders estimate that at least several hundred have space here. Last year, the gallerists tried an informal census of the city’s artists, but ran out of time after conducting interviews with about 60 people.

Yanjiao has also caught the eye of established artists. Its most famous tenants are the Gao Brothers, a pair of multimedia artists internationally known for their irreverent sculptures. In 2013, they bought a former factory building and turned it into an airy studio complex they call Blessgo, which they use for making larger works.

Referring to the quickly gentrifying 798 Art District in Beijing, Gao Zhen, the older brother, said in an interview, “In 798, we still won’t be allowed to exhibit certain works of art, and you just can’t completely let go of your worries because even renting studios in 798 isn’t completely stable, with demolitions and relocations.”

The siblings still maintain a studio in the 798 district, but plan to eventually relocate entirely to Yanjiao.

兄弟俩在798艺术区依然拥有一间工作室，不过打算最终彻底搬到燕郊。

Most artists in Yanjiao work in more humble circumstances. Much of the city’s surplus of residential space takes the form of cheap, unfinished apartments called maopifang. Little more than concrete shells, they are perfect for artists looking to create studios on a shoestring.

Because of the dominance of residential space in Yanjiao, its atmosphere differs markedly from the gritty industrial hipness of Caochangdi or the more touristic 798, where cafes, boutiques and galleries have sprung up alongside artists’ studios. In Yanjiao, virtually nothing comparable has appeared.

But many of the Yanjiao artists have embraced its decidedly suburban aesthetic.

不过，燕郊的很多艺术家很喜欢这种纯粹的郊区美感。

Zhang Zhanzhan, a painter, has completely transformed his maopifang over the years, covering the concrete floors with whitewashed pine slats and the empty doorways with colored fabric. Pictures of his chic studio have been viewed by thousands of users on WeChat, a Chinese social media app.

“I once went to drop off some paintings at a Beijing gallery, and the person there asked me if I was the artist with the ‘Tokyo-style studio,’” he recalled.

“有一次，我去北京送几幅画，有人问我，你是那个‘东京风格工作室’的艺术家吗？”他回忆说。

Yanjiao’s days as an affordable outpost may be numbered. Rents have more than tripled since the first artists moved in, mainly because of property speculation, and the number of unfinished maopifangs has dwindled.

While a fresh wave of graduates from the capital’s art academies move into Yanjiao each summer, many older artists have already left.

尽管每年夏天都有新一批北京艺术院校的毕业生搬到燕郊，但是很多年长的艺术家已经离开。

Last year, On Space decided not to renew its lease, because most of its events are now held in collaboration with organizations in Beijing. Zhang Yongji is going back to the capital to pursue a master’s degree.

去年，On Space决定不再续签租约，因为现在它的大部分活动是和北京的一些组织联合举办的。张永基打算回首都攻读硕士学位。

“This is a very temporary place,” he said. “We’re all here still hoping to someday make it in Beijing.”